Until the 1/8 finals, Rublev, eighth seed, played in this tournament exclusively with the French. Andrey went through the nets of Artur Kazo, Gael Monfils and Artur Rinderknesh. And Draper’s entrance onto this stage was a big surprise, even a sensation. In the second round, the Briton managed to please his fans without losing a single game to 17th seed Hubert Hurkach – 6:2, 6:4, 7:5.
Before the match against Draper, Rublev complimented his opponent, despite the fact that in 2022 he beat him twice: on clay at the Madrid Masters and on hard in Washington.
At the start of this year, Draper reached No. 38 in the ATP rankings. Last year, Jack, who became a Wimbledon junior finalist in 2018, had two top-10 victories. At the Montreal Masters he lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas, and at the US Open, to Félix Auger-Aliassime. But the young Briton then fell beyond the top 100. He is now 123rd in the world rankings.
The match did not start easily for Rublev: he had to save a break point in the first game, but successfully. Then the Russian added to the court, and in the fourth game he himself went to break points for the first time and took the opponent’s serve in the second attempt – 3: 1. general, the pitch did not let any of the players down. Both worked very well for her.
Thus, he effectively secured victory in the first set. After the tennis players won two of their matches, Andrei served for the match at 5:3, and he had no problem with that – 6:3 in 36 minutes. Draper was wrong almost twice as often as his opponent (11 straight against six).
At the start of the second set, the initiative was also on Rublev’s side. The Russian brought his games down to zero and Draper had considerable problems on the pitch. This is especially true of the tense third game (five times it was “exactly”!), in which the players repeatedly staged long rallies on the backline. But the Briton managed to save his four break points. But in the sixth game, while serving, Andrey double faulted twice, one of them on a break point, and Jack took the lead – 4:2. Rublev then shouted as he threw a racket onto the court.
Emotions failed Rublev. It seems that moment broke the Russian. But it didn’t take him long to recover. As a result – a lost end and hassle.
Having taken the lead, Draper immediately started making mistakes and nearly lost it, but allowed a double break point in game seven. Rublev, annoyed by the broken break, again could not hold back his emotions, which, however, did not prevent him from subsequently bringing his game to zero. Draper, at 5:3, confidently completed a set – 6:3 in 47 minutes.
In the third game, Rublev lost his ground in the first game, but in the fourth he finally redeemed himself for this failure and the previous ones, returning the break – 2: 2. It seems that this moment was decisive. Now Draper was too worried about what had happened.
In the sixth game, the Russian, thanks to Draper’s mistakes, got a double break point, but the Briton pulled himself together and didn’t let his opponent take the lead, closing the game with two aces, – 3:3. However, the end of the set still remained in Andrey’s hands. First, he won his match with zero, completing three aces, after which he took someone else’s serve from the second break point, although it all started with 40:0 on the serve from Jack, and in the ninth game he easily laid down the game – 6:3 in 42 minutes. Rublev played in this game, having scored eight innings throughout.
In the fourth set, Rublev clearly decided to put pressure on his opponent. In the third game he got a break point but failed to convert it. And in the fifth game, Andrey made a break at zero, after which he defended his serve – 4:2. Then the players won a game on serve (5:3) and in the ninth game Rublev missed two match points on reception. Despite a home failure, Andrei qualified for the match in the next game – 6:3, 3:6, 6:3, 6:4 in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
As a result, Draper had even more aces than Rublev – 18 against 14. But he was knocked down by too many unforced errors: 36 against 24.
Rublev reached the quarter-finals of the US Open for the second time in a row. He will play at this stage of the tournament for the fourth time in his career. This is the ninth outing for him in the top eight of the Grand Slam tournaments. But he never reached the TBS semi-finals. I wonder if it will be possible to break this unfortunate tradition this time.
In the quarter-finals of the US Open, Andrey can play with Daniil Medvedev (3), if he beats Australian Alex de Minor (13) on the night of September 4-5, Moscow time.
Anton Mozgovoy, Athletistic
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I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
